


All The Ways

by i_am_zan



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Gen, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6963001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_zan/pseuds/i_am_zan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rose by any other name ... perhaps in this case a Lotus? Contemplation and musings of what's in a name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Ways

**Author's Note:**

> Phew ... I haven't (written) in a while so apologies for every infraction on syntax and grammar. At base level it reads well enough, but slightly off here and there. Any critique is welcome, even if it is such a short piece. Call it a flexing of long unused atrophied muscles. All disclaimers apply don't own the characters just playing in Hoshino Katsura's playground. Enjoy.

All the Ways

When they were first introduced to each other, he said it to the best of his knowledge on how it should be. He is slightly hurt that his effort is met with disdain and barely acknowledged. His offer of handshake ignored. Every time he says it thereafter is met with threat of disembowelment and death. Initially he says it a lot to see if ever he would get it right. Just once, maybe? 

Yu.  
Yuu  
Yu-u

Then it became a kind of game, just to see, how far he could push the envelope. Oft he says it accompanied by a pokes in that bubble of personal of space. The pokes vary from a little push just barely touching on the surface tension, but sometimes more blatant and in your face. Once it took him almost to a full length braid before he does get a reaction. He’s not sure if that was just luck or ninja skills or the other simply wanted to see how far he would go. Because ninja skills is something that is not really his forte.

He knows that it is just a name after all. It could mean nothing and everything … especially with his friend. Yes, in spite of it, or perhaps because of it - this non-thing - he considers him friend. It is a non-thing, because it isn’t like he can reciprocate in kind if it was a thing. With his chosen calling. He also knows better than most that a name can be ephemeral things that are fleeting and forgotten … eventually. He himself is on number forty-nine. 

He’s had time to muse on all the ways the name fits. in his own journals that he keeps separate from the Bookman records and thus from the scrutiny of the old man. He does not really need to write them down, but reasons that it is cathartic and perhaps once it is all written down he will not think more on the matter. He smiles as he remembers the one that came to him first, 雄, "masculine". Kanda Yuu was definitely masculine. Not in the “Grr, Me Man” neanderthal way. Instead it is imbued in his stoicism, his almost unbending sense of duty, his confidence in who(what?) he is. Bookman Junior does not need to write down how grace seems to settle on the boy-to-the-man becoming like the Black Order coat that outlines his defined shoulder muscles, sitting on slim hips that is screaming “STRIKE” in capitals in his head. The legs lean and lithesome. 

Then sometimes, very rarely seen that even he doubts his own Bookman sharps, but he knows is there is the 優, "tenderness", that exists for Lenalee Lee. Perhaps one day he might be shown it a little. Again, he knows it is unfair to want something that he himself cannot give out, he is supposed to be impartial after all. Gentleness is not something to indulge in, given the multifaceted persona he gives off. Easy, easy going, not much beyond the surface. He quite envies Yuu’s position in that respect. To feel and to be sure and then not really give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks, That is courage. Something Yuu is all the time, the 勇, "courage" he wears like the crest on their chests, more often than not courage looks like stupidity in the face of danger and he’s smirking at it. But hell bells, it is Yuu, after all. Wherefore art he 由, a reason, THE reason why his brain is running around in circles giving him a headache where he does not need one and if he is honest, the headache is really in his rapidly appearing non-heart. 

Night comes and even then he cannot escape his musings for 夕, the "evening" is when it is hardest not to think about Yuu, The midnight blue almost black hair that is soft, just so, never tangled, the eyes like a dark night glittering hard and in counterpoint so deep. That skin so porcelain pale like the moon peeking out from all the shades of cobalt and prussian. That face, countenance schooled, a flash of that neck, those firm hands, flying fast and deadly accurate. By this point he is groaning “why, WHY, why YUu? Of all people.” Perhaps if he suffocates himself into his pillows all his musings will go away and leave him alone. But there is at the last that thing called悠, "permanence". He’s got him under the skin and there is no denying it and for now … the games will continue. 

Yu  
Yuu  
Yu-u

To ingratiate, to goad, to say it in all the ways that it can mean, to just say the name like it encompasses everything he probably should never think about or want, and hope that he is not as transparent as it really is. Because it really is just a shallow game. Really. 

He could say that it merely is in retaliation to all the times he is called a stupid rabbit. Because really … of all things why … a rabbit, and a stupid one at that. He then thinks of all the ways “stupid rabbit’ can be said. With malice and spite usually, but sometimes, just sometimes there is a small smirk of warmth. Just a hint of it in the tiniest upturn of the curled lips and the very slightest crinkle around the perfect skin around the eyes. Sometimes the glint is not as hard and when ‘Stupid Rabbit’ comes out it is just to hide the other's acknowledgement that Lavi is real and it is an understanding of each other’s boundaries. A respect for who the other really is.

So for now the sparring will continue because that is all they have, and can afford in this crazy world they live and fight in. All the ways. So far. 

End

**Author's Note:**

> There are things that Yuu can mean the Wikipedia page gives this following (Quote):-  
> Yū or Yu or Yuu (ゆう, ユウ?) is a very common Japanese given name used by either sex.
> 
> Possible writings[edit]  
> Yū can be written using different kanji characters and can mean:
> 
> 優, "tenderness" or "superiority"  
> 夕, "evening"  
> 友, "friend"  
> 有, "qualified"  
> 勇, "courage"  
> 祐, "help"  
> 裕, "abundant"  
> 雄, "masculine"  
> 悠, "permanence"  
> 由宇, "reason, eaves"  
> 侑, "assist"
> 
> And I only picked a few. So there you go. ^_^. Just so you know.


End file.
